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Editorials
A New School Plan
The Editors
George Bush and Bill Clinton both wanted to be an education president and both wanted to make U.S. public schools the best in the world. Neither succeeded, although in his various farewells Mr. Clinton talked as though he thought he had. Two immovable obstacles blocked their way.In the first place,
Books
War on Several Fronts
John B. Breslin
The distinction between fact and fiction is often a contested one Nor does it remain static especially for novelists like Graham Greene and Michael Ondaatje who have drawn their inspiration from the fractured politics of our just past century In The English Patient it was World War II and its ru
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Funding for Faith-Based Initiatives Seen as First HurdleThe first real test of whether President Bush’s proposed faith-based initiatives will succeed in changing the way the nation’s social services are provided will come in his budget proposal, said an official with Catholic Charities U
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Metaphor or Myth

One important conclusion in Creationism and the Catechism, by Joan Acker, H.M. (12/16)that God creates suffering and death (evil?)is empirical tunnel vision. We need to look outside the tunnel to see metaphysical reality.

Focusing our vision of sin on chronological events turns sin into a material action rather than the relationship that it is. The discovery of death in the universe chronologically prior to the existence of humanity is not the intractable problem that Sister Acker’s writing suggests. The real problem is the attempt to judge the relationships of human spirits, such as sin and innocence, within the restrictions that empiricism imposes on human understanding. A more appropriate forum would be a metaphorical courtroom where we can examine a broader range of evidence without being hampered by the prejudice that intangible equals unreal.

For example, there is the common human perception, which cuts across cultures centuries before the Hebrew Scriptures, that two forces are at work in the universe: a good, creative one, and a bad, destructive one, which leads humans into evil. Complementary to that is the common human experience of being born into the relative paradise of innocence, then in two or three years beginning to succumb to the apple of rebellion, and in a few more years beginning to recognize our nakedness. After that we spend a good portion of our lives attempting to convince ourselves and others, especially the One out there, that the devil made me do it.

Are these perceptions and experiences myth, or are we seeing reality through a glass, darkly? Wisps of perfume, or simply nostalgia? I think we make more complete use of our human powers when we recognize that these perceptions and experiences have probative value and make a good circumstantial case. We should look at fallen angels and Adam and Eve as metaphors for reality, not myths. Theologians would do us all a service by working to dispel the notion that God creates suffering and death, an idea that itself fits more neatly into the category of myth.

James Crafton

Columns
Cherishing Life
Camille DArienzo
The U.S. federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., is a harsh and punishing place, as correctional facilities are meant to be. Privileges for relatively normal communication that are allowed the general population do not apply to those on Death Row. A separate wing shelters the men condemned to dea
The Word
Radical Eye Surgery
John R. Donahue
Whether dispensed by Ann Landers Miss Manners a legion of talk show hosts or reams of self-help books handy advice on a host of matters is as American as apple pie Whatever their lofty and diverse religious ideals people live out of a store of folk wisdom A stitch in time saves nine You do w
Books
Making a Difference
Donald P. Kommers
We are witnessing another world war This is the message of Deliver Us From Evil Unlike World War I and World War II this war is not among nations Conscripted armies do not meet on distant battlefields in defense of national interests No noble purpose informs this war No medals of honor dignify
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
George M. Anderson
It doesn’t take much to get me on the Staten Island ferrythat wondrous half-hour trip across the New York harbor to an island that is one of the city’s five boroughs. Usually, the occasion is a friend’s visit to New York City. Few are those who, looking back from the ferry midway,
Editorials
Disarming Russia
The Editors
One might hope that 10 years after the end of the cold war, a policy of mutual assured destruction would have been relegated to the dustbin of history. But cold war mental habits die hard. The United States and Russia still square off against each other with tons of chemical weapons and thousands of
Books
A Laureate's Garden
Gerald T. Cobb
Saul Bellow rsquo s literary career has stretched over so many years that at least one commentator has distinguished Late Bellow from Even Later Bellow Works such as The Adventures of Augie March Seize the Day Henderson the Rain King Herzog and Humbolt rsquo s Gift earned Bellow the triple crown
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Pope Announces Seven More CardinalsIn a surprising and unprecedented move, Pope John Paul II named seven new cardinals after having appointed 37 just a week earlier. The new nominees included archbishops from Ukraine and Latvia whom the pope had designated cardinals in pectore—in his heart&mda
Columns
The Christian Imperative
Thomas J. McCarthy

Knock, knock.

The Word
A World Without Enemies?
John R. Donahue
As the religious landscape becomes more pluralistic people especially the young wonder what is most characteristic of Christianity Today rsquo s Gospel presents a paradox Love of enemies compassion mercy and forgiveness appear as the core of Jesus rsquo teaching in Luke rsquo s ldquo Sermon
Christians, Christmas and the Intifada
Drew Christiansen
For Palestinians, Christmas 2000 was to have been a celebration not only of the second millennium of Jesus’ birth, in which they would play host to the Christian world. It also was to have marked the emergence of Palestine as a destination for world travel with Bethlehem as its center. The Wor
Books
Marketing Medicine
Dr. Daniel P. Sulmasy
Richard Epstein the James Parker Hall Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Chicago is a notable member of the so-called law and economics movement which promotes within the field of law the free-market economics of Milton Friedman and his successors This movement holds that the pu
Ethical Issues in Cybermedicine
John J. Paris
Arlo Guthries classic 1960s folk song, which told us you could get anything you want at Alices Restaurant, has its 90s counterpart on the Internet. There you can visit Go Ask Alice, Columbia Universitys funky site for straight shooting, nonjudgmental answers concerning your physical, emotional, and
Faith in Focus
Preaching Social Justice in Homilies
Robert F. Drinan
When the project Preaching the Just Word was initiated almost 10 years ago, I applauded. After my recent participation in a five-day retreat/workshop with 66 other Jesuits, I stand converted to a program with enormous power and potential. At the age of 75, Father Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., had finis
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Literate Praise

Thank you for America. Especially for its coverage of literature. Nofor all of it.

We’re made for God, we live and vote and allocate time and money in the world. No other publication speaks fully to our condition. Also, you are the last publication to use correct grammar. That you do all this in New York City astounds me.

Annie Dillard

How Could a Catholic Vote That Way?
Charles E. Bouchard
Just before the November election, I gave a lecture in a parish on Christian responsibility in an election year. I suggested that we have to take a variety of issues into consideration in making a judgment about the best candidate and that voters could opt for a strategy other than legal interdictio
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Peculiar Concepts

Valerie Schultz (Renew the Face of the Earth! 1/8) should not be amazed at the outrageous attack the journal Crisis made about the Renew program. It is par for the course. Any time a work in the church, no matter how fine it may be, does not fit into their peculiar definition of Catholic, it will be attacked.

Renew is one of the finest programs both for evangelization and the continuing education of people that has been developed in the church over the past 20 years.

I have been following the course of Renew and have found its programs well formulated and fitting into the finest of Catholic thought. Msgr. Tom Kleisler, the founder of Renew, is one of the most intelligent and zealous priests in the U.S. The editors of Crisis have peculiar concepts of what Catholic thought and action aretoday, or truly in any day in the history of the church.

(Rev. Msgr.) John J. Egan